Harper Potts, the Girl Who Died - Outtakes
by Harper Potts
Summary: I'm posting as I write and trying to write fast. Sometimes when pushing for speed a chapter takes a wrong turn. These are the wrong turns, chapters that might have been, but weren't.


**A/N #1:** Welcome to the outtakes for the Harper Potts the Girl Who Died saga. I'm writing the Girl Who Died serially and posting it as I go along. I'm doing it to push myself to write more and to work on posting speed and volume. I do know roughly where I want my story to go, but I don't work from an outline. Occasionally as I'm writing I end up with pieces of the story that don't work. This happens all the time in the writing process and in a story for publication these wrong branches would get edited out and not make it to published version. However, since I'm publishing fan fiction, I decided that instead of just deleting my mistakes, that I would publish them as outtakes. Think of them as places the story might have gone but didn't.

**A/N #2:** This can be thought of as roughly chapter 28 ½ in the Hogwarts year one book. This section got cut mostly because I did not like Harper's mindset. After thinking about how Harper would react after chapter 28 was over, I suspect that she'd be in shock, barely able to function. She'd almost died multiple times and saw death for the first time. She wouldn't be handling it as well as I wrote below.

Also I was just putting too much detail into Kettleburn (a very minor character) and the cobra that Harper found. I was really considering making the cobra into Harper's familiar, but changed my mind. So all in all this chapter was full of a lot of missteps which is why I cut it.

* * *

**Jade**

Harper spent the rest of the afternoon in damage control. Myrtle was giddy with victory and wanted more details right then, but Harper was able to hold her off with a promise to return later. She had to cleanup, coax the cobra from its hidey hole and then take it to Professor Kettleburn.

She found the professor in his office. It was immediately obvious that he taught care of magical creatures by his office. The room was filled with shelves full of bits and pieces of magical creatures: curved horns, hairy legs, stuffed and shriveled heads, organs preserved in jars. Some of the smaller creatures were kept in small glass cages. On one shelf, a terrarium tank holding pixies had been placed alongside one containing fairies. The inhabitants of both cages were engaged in a war of taunting each other through the glass. Some of the gestures were rather vulgar, which she would have expected from pixies, but not from fairies.

Professor Kettleburn, looked up from a huge magnifying glass from where he was dissecting some kind of froggy looking creature. He had a pegleg for his right foot and a hook for a right hand, but instead of pirate he came across as eccentric professor. "Hello, can I help you? You look a little young to be in one of my classes. You're the Potter boy, aren't you."

"Yes sir, Harry Potter." She held up the cobra that was wrapped around her arm. "I was wondering if you could help me with this."

"Oh, what do you have there?" He gave the snake coiled around Harper's arm a good look. "Why that's a mundane cobra. Why are you carrying it around? Has it bitten you?"

"No sir. It was rather an accident. Someone cast _Serpentsortia_ and she popped out. Turns out that I'm a parselmouth and I managed to get her to calm down, but I thought you might know what to do with it."

Professor Kettleburn nodded and took out a pipe. "Hmm, interesting. I mean that you being a parselmouth is interesting. Nothing at all interesting about the snake. If you want me to take it off your hands, I suppose I can feed it to the hippogriffs. So how long have been a parselmouth?" He tipped some tobacco into his pipe and lit up.

"Umm, I guess all my life, but I didn't really know it until recently." Harper covered up the snake with her left hand. "Is there something else you can do with her, sir. I don't want her killed. It wasn't her fault that Malfoy cast the Snake Summoning Charm."

"Malfoy, hmm. I suppose that would be the son of Lucius Malfoy." Kettleburn puffed on his pipe. "Odd that a cobra popped out. It should have called out a more common English variety of snake. I suppose I could try the ownership spell on it."

"I'm not familiar with that spell, sir. What does it do?"

"Let me demonstrate." He took out his pipe and placed it on his desk where it balanced perfectly. Kettleburn then removed his wand, gave it a swirl. "_Mim-mi!_"

Suddenly the snake on Harper's arm twisted around it's head swiveled and it started at her. "_Yesss?_" the cobra asked in parseltongue.

"_Shh, it's okay_," Harper reassured it.

Kettleburn put away his wand and picked up his pipe. "Interesting. No other owner, but you are already considered it's owner. Are you planning to bond it as a familiar? Snakes are rare as familiars, but parselmouths have been known to take them. If you don't, I'll be glad to put it down. I'll make it quick and painless. I promise it won't feel a thing."

She just killed a basilisk. So it should be easy to let Kettleburn put the cobra down, but it wasn't. It made good logical sense. It would be bad enough being known all over school as a parseltongue, she didn't need a snake familiar as well. Voldemort was already going to have his Nagini. "Can't we set her free or give her to a muggle zoo?"

"Mr. Potter, you came to me for help and I've given you advice. According to the ownership spell, the snake is yours. I recommend you either put it down or make it a familiar. It is too dangerous to set free and too much hassle to try to put in a muggle zoo."

The cobra hadn't done anything for her. It had run off and hid during the fight. It wasn't going to make her friends, but she didn't want it killed. If she must have a familiar, she'd much rather have a cat, something warm that would sit on her lap and purr. She didn't need to carry around a snake. That would be a visible reminder that she was a dark wizard. However, she didn't want it killed. She focused her gaze on the cobra. "_Would you like to live with me? I don't spend a lot of time outside, so you won't be able to hunt. I'll have to bring you mice or something and you'll probably spend a lot of time in a cage._"

"_You would hunt for me? Yes, speaker, I like mice. I would stay with you._"

Great, she now had a cobra for a pet. "_Then you will._" She looked to Professor Kettleburn who was watching her with amusement. "It looks like I'm going to keep her. Do you have a spare terrarium that I can house her in? I'll pay you for it. Oh, and can you tell me how to order live mice or whatever I need to feed her."

He laughed. "Perhaps the snake was more interesting than I thought. That's a might useful talent Mr. Potter. You'll have to get approval from your head of house to keep the snake since it isn't a cat, an owl or a toad, but that shouldn't be a problem. I can't imagine the head of Slytherin house refusing to allow a parseltongue to have a snake familiar. I think I can find you what you need."

Kettleburn was very helpful. He set her up with a large terrarium with unbreakable glass sides and refused payment. He also gave her a catalog from Magical Menagerie located in Diagon Alley with forms for mail ordering supplies including live mice. Snape was less enthusiastic. He reminded her that familiars were not allowed during class time. He also insisted she was to brew no less than three vials of Snake Venom antidote and have them on her person at all times the cobra was out of its cage. She was to report that evening to brew the potions.

Now she just had to face her fellow Slytherins and the other students. She looked down at the cobra wondering if it was really worth that much trouble. The cobra seemed perfectly content to just lay wrapped around her arm. At least with a venomous snake on her arm, Malfoy would probably mind his manners. She gave the password and entered the Slytherin common room to find most of the first years as well as many other Slytherins sitting around. All conversation died as she entered the room. "Hello everyone."

Most of the Slytherins just watched but Theo got up. "So, you're keeping it?"

"What can I say? She likes me. Kettleburn was going to feed it to the hippogriffs."

"Wicked!" enthused Theo. "So it likes you? Are you going to bond it? Snakes make a great familiar for a duelist."

Harper would rather not have this conversation with so many people listening in, but too late now. "Maybe. I thought bonding a familiar just happened, that it couldn't be controlled." She started walking toward her room, but Blaise came over to join them blocking her path.

Theo kept talking. "Yeah, but when you're our age if you take care of an animal for days and treat it right, you'll usually bond. It gets harder for adults. Some wizards never have more than one familiar ever. Still, it will be brilliant for dueling."

"Alright Theo, I'll ask. Why is a snake brilliant for dueling?"

"Oh, their benefit. Snakes confer reflexes. Good for that fast draw and reaction time."

"Wow." That sounded good in general. "So why aren't snakes one of the approved pets."

"Well, familiars pick up their masters emotions. Snakes tend to bite people when their master is angry. Of course, since you're a parselmouth, you will probably have better control over your snake than most would. Simply brilliant."

Blaise quietly shook his head. Obviously he didn't think it was brilliant. Pansy approached. "I think it's pretty. So what are you going to call it?"

"I don't know." She looked at the snake curled around her arm. "_Do you have a name?_"

"_No, speaker, but you can give me one if you like._"

"Well it doesn't have a name. So I'll have to come up with something."

"How about Slithers?" suggested Pansy.

Yuck, that was too much like Scabbers. She considered the dark green scales. "I think I'll call her, Jade."


End file.
